aardvarkjoe claims that The over/underrated moderations are for weak-opinioned fools who are abusing the mod system.

I had mod points the day he wrote that and wanted to mod the post down as overrated just as a silly joke. Couldn't do that, of course, because it would have been deservedly metamoderated as a bad mod. I settled on posting an AC reply because I wanted to preserve my mod points for well written stuff that deserved points but still wanted to tease him a bit. All of which is a long-winded way of saying that it is time I explored the economics/game theory of/.'s moderation system. Specifically, is the "Can't post if you've moderated" rule + the anonymous nature of the moderations really lead to the best of breed floating to the top?